Wild Chaga Hunt

I like tea. South Korea has many type of teas from green, barley, corn and then there is chaga. Chaga can be wild harvested out of nature. I can be found anywhere near birch trees. When boiled it produces a dedoction (which is a fancy word for liquid produced by boiling roots, bark, or rhizomes(also a fancy word for the organisms that mushrooms come from). I'll call it a tea.

It can be drunk by itself or made into a drink combining different herbal teas, protein sources, coffee, that has immune strengthening properties to it. The out black layer is bitter and has anti-cancer properties about it. The inner layer has immune strengthening properties about it and is sweet. The inner layer is the part to boil for a sweet liquid that tastes similar to vanilla.

Medical studies have been done on the effect of chaga.

Here is one of a substantial number found on pubmed.

Anticancer activity of subfractions containing pure compounds of Chaga mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) extract in human cancer cells and in Balbc/c mice bearing Sarcoma-180 cells.

Chaga can be found anywhere where there is birch trees.

Last month I set off to Soyo Mountain near the DMZ to find some chaga.